God IS in the schools…

…stop pretending He’s not

This image appeared in my Facebook feed today, shared by someone I know to be well-intentioned, someone who legitimately cares about our schools and kids and not necessarily about scoring political points. So I read this exchange in good faith (disregarding the Comic Sans and the fact this is a t-shirt clearly designed for a Franklin Graham rally). And it rang false to me. Here’s why.

What person of faith reading this believes a doorway forcibly separates them from God? Do you, Christian, believe you let go of Jesus at the school entrance? Or that He lets go of you?

I hit peak religiosity in middle school, as a 12- and 13-year-old attending evening classes at church to prepare for my confirmation. During my studies I found a deep resonance with the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. I pondered Jesus’ words and how I should act on them in 1980s America. I committed the Small Catechism and Luther’s explications to memory, and regularly recited them in my head (to pass the test, ostensibly, though I’d like to think there was some prayerful meditation involved). I contemplated these things walking the halls and sitting in the classrooms of Martha Brown Junior High.

It never occurred to me to think God was not present in my recitations. Perhaps because I never experienced explicitly Christian school-lead prayer, I didn’t perceive its absence as a loss. I received a full and rigorous religious education through my church, and a first-rate foundation in science and humanities in public school. And somehow, I incorporated those into one well-rounded self, able to apply the appropriate spiritual or intellectual tool when each is called for.

Why can’t American fundamentalist Christians do the same? Why do they place limitations on God’s power and presence? And why do they claim no power in the affairs of man? For all the cries of “Freedom!” and “Government tyranny!”, why does their solution to our particular scourge of school gun violence hinge on state-sponsored religious practice? God is in our schools whether the local district mandates Bible study or not. He is not constrained by municipal ordinance or the establishment clause.

How many of the folks clamoring for prayer in school have invited school-age strangers to their church? If religious instruction is needed to solve society’s ills, are they focused on filling the Sunday schools? Unless the point is less about the values themselves and more about whose values hold sway in the public sphere. If control of the nation’s cultural narrative is the true goal, all the insane policy positions fall into place.

God is already in the schools. Stop putting the burden to solve our man-made problems on Him, and take up His cross yourself.